TRIAGE: Chapter Two
by Maevenly
Summary: Lee does the only thing he can to make sure he and Kara survive Pegasus. slightly AU, but in all the right places. This is the second chapter of the same story that was originally posted on the 'T' page. this chapter is MA. LK, some Pegasus characters to


**Author's Notes: This story, the first chapter, is listed on the K-T page of this archive. As chapter two was created, it became too 'M' for the main page and since I don't want this story pulled by the moderators, I had to post the second chapter here, on the 'M' page... Please, I know it is a hassle having to go back and forth between the two pages, but I just didn't know any other way to correctly post this story. **

**And Again: This story is completely and utterly dedicated to the amazing Tame!**

**TRIAGE**

Chapter Two

* * *

**Lee does the only thing he can to make sure he and Kara survive Pegasus.**

* * *

Age – it had to be his age catching up with him.

For as much walking as he did criss-crossing the corridors of a ship as big as Pegasus, Jack Fiske – somehow – always found himself huffing and puffing by the time he got to wherever he was going.

Feeling the strain in his chest as his breath got shorter, he was never so relieved to see the hatch to his quarters. It was the one place where the long arm of Admiral Cain didn't extend.

Punching in his security code with one hand and freeing his brass with the other, he could hear the bottle of ambrosia stashed in his desk drawer calling his name.

Shouldering the door inward, he smelled the blue-tinged cloud of smoke crawling along the ceiling of his quarters before he saw the nearly bald man sipping his hoarded green beverage from one of two shot glasses and sitting behind his desk.

"Might want to shut that, Jack."

The last thing – or person – he expected to see was Saul Tigh.

"Don't think you want Cain knowing that you and I are going to have a conversation she most certainly wouldn't like."

Leaning even further back in Fiske's chair, Tigh indulged in another deep draw on the man's cigarette and chased it with another mouthful of the man's ambrosia.

Setting his glass down and not caring where the ashes fell, Tigh had to admit that he was enjoying the way Fiske was trying to keep his florid face from giving anything away. He'd bet five cubits that Fiske wasn't even aware that he was re-buttoning his uniform jacket and hiking his pants up over his gut. Those two things alone made the trip over to The Beast almost worthwhile. Almost, but not quite; it wasn't enough to make him overlook why he was there. The fact that Fiske hadn't exploded with indignation at seeing someone in his private quarters, that same person who by-passed the intricate security precautions Fiske had put in place, and helped himself to Jack's well-hidden private stores of cigarettes and booze, convicted the man of being involved. If he were innocent and found Galactica's executive officer lounging in his office, Fiske would have been justifiably irate. As it was, Fiske closed the hatch and regarded him the same way someone would if they were ordered to take a bone from a dog and were still figuring out the best way to do it. The man didn't understand that the 'bone' Tigh had couldn't be taken away.

Watching Fiske step cautiously towards his own desk turned the ambrosia in Saul's mouth to antiseptic. Every single one of the twenty-odd scenarios he spun in his mind during his flight from Galactica, and rummaging around in the man's quarters, involved Jack putting up some sort of fight. Or, at the very least, some sort of diatribe 'justifying' what he had done. The man's cowardice over-rode the taste of the alcohol on his tongue and erased the pleasant buzz, courtesy of the third such cigarette currently pinched between his fingers, which until now had made his vigil relatively enjoyable.

"Haven't had this kind of stuff on Galactica for a while." Knocking back the liquid still in his glass more for show, Tigh breathed ambrosia fumes in Fiske's face and lied. "Smooth."

"Saul – if I had known you were coming, I would've had CAP escort you in and met you in the hanger bay as soon as you came on board." Cracking a wry grin, Jack's friendliness was limited by the suspicion his eyes. Nor was it lost on either one of them that he didn't reach out to shake Saul's hand.

Pouring himself another shot kept him from telling Jack that the man sucked at the fine art of subtlety. Sloshing the ambrosia around in the glass and seriously wondering if he could choke it down, Saul fired a low-level ordinance barrage at point blank range.

"How do you think I came on board, Jack?" Leaning back and giving Fiske every ounce of cavalier-dredged smugness the man deserved, Saul had to force himself to swallow the green swill that clung thickly to the shot glass.

"Seems that someone forgot that once upon a time, I too was a Viper pilot," Feeding on Fiske's disgrace, Tigh's smug look graduated to a tight smirk.

Gods, it had felt good to fly again, even if it did re-enforce the fact that his body couldn't handle the g-forces of launching on a day-to-day basis. Fun and games aside, it felt even better to lay his cards down – the reason for all the cloak-and-dagger – for Fiske to read.

The man sitting across from him shit a brick as he loosely figured out what Tigh was alluding to; Saul had actually got his ass into a Viper. The reason why no one knew Tigh had come on board was because he was part of that CAP that had been, deliberately, diverted to Pegasus. Using the Pegasus' condescending attitude as part of the plan, specifically the way the deck crew perceived the 'hodgepodge' collection of pilots Galactica called a squadron, a tall, fit, older man would have blended right in – especially if he knew his way around a flight deck. Cain's people were conditioned to count the number of bodies getting out of their crafts, not to ask for names, ranks and serial numbers of those in the hanger bay.

"It's come to my attention that you and I each have a problem to solve, Jack," Tigh drawled.

"You know me, Saul. Anything I can do to help." Playing it cool, as neither one of them could smell the load of crap in the man's pants, Tigh was mildly amused as Fiske finally decided to weave his fingers together and rest them on his stomach. "My people are your people."

Drawing a deep drag of the cigarette – more to burn it down than to actually enjoy the now extinct leaf – Tigh watched Jack's face become fixated on the glowing tip. Exhaling all over Fisk again, the office chair creaked as Saul leaned forward.

"See – that's the problem – they aren't." Maintaining the upper hand, Saul's barefaced insinuation made Jack flush a little bit more. Unable to resist pricking the man's pride, he laid out Fiske's tactical mistake. "You and your people got sloppy, Jack."

Hearing the other man's sputter that he didn't know what Saul was talking about, Tigh held up his hand in the same way he would silence an overly talkative cadet that was getting on his last nerve.

"You all have gotten so used to looking behind you and watching out for the person in front of you that you've forgotten to check your horizontal axis. You aren't the only ones out there anymore." Cigarette in hand, Saul tapped his fingers against the face of an oversized, octagonal, envelope and doubled the size of the thousand-pound dagget sitting in the room.

"You see, Jack, pilots are a rare breed of soldier. They're trained to be the best. They use their eyes and their gut to stay alive. But the number one thing you've got to remember about pilots is that there's always someone watching their back – whether it be a wing man, a commander or a DRADIS system."

Choosing his words deliberately, Saul identified exactly who knew what Fiske had done, condoned or turned a blind eye to, when the attack on Kara Thrace went down. Tightening the screws, drawing on the memory Bill's clenched jaw and terse words when Gaeta showed them the stills that were created, made Fiske shrink even more in his chair.

"It's interesting what your Tactical Office – who has a genius IQ - can accomplish when his commander sees something on the radar screen that he doesn't like. I never knew it was possible to create prints of a DRADIS display, including those from other ships in the Fleet, before this morning. Did you?" Rhetorical question aside, there was no mistaking just how far down his nose Tigh was looking at Fiske.

"I'll look into this immediately! If any of my men did anything to jeopardize the life of someone else…" Fiske's hurried promise was steeped in self-preservation.

Knowing first hand how volatile the younger Adama could be when he was properly 'motivated' by a sense of moral conviction had Tigh pouring one more shot of ambrosia. With the deliberateness of moving a chess piece and calling 'check', Tigh set the drink on top of the envelope and cut Fiske off at the knees.

"Not this time, Jack." Tigh slid the envelope – along with the shot of ambrosia – towards Fiske. "That's already being taken care of."

Confidence in a certain Captain's skills lilted the reason why Jack Fiske wasn't going to do anything but keep turning a blind eye to how the rest of this was going to play out.

There was no mistaking the expectant look on Saul's face; Fiske knew exactly what Tigh was waiting for him to do.

Effectively trumped by his Galactica counterpart, Jack signed Starbuck and Apollo's 'get out of jail free card' with the two swallows it took to drain his glass.

Standing up, Galactica's emblem caught and flashed in the light as Tigh's arms filled out the sleeves. Tigh rested a strong hand on Fiske's shoulder on his way to the hatch. It was his way to telling Jack Fiske that he was now a permanent fixture on Saul's personal radar.

Bsg……….xxx……….bsg……….

The resounding clatter of Stinger's body hitting the metal storage lockers wasn't nearly enough payment for what the bastard had done.

Keeping his grip on the man's lapels, Lee hauled Stinger around and jarred the man's spine against the lip of the metal desk behind them. With the hatch dogged – all but sound-proofing the room – and a pair of boots left hanging on the latch – guaranteed that Lee would have all the time he needed to wring an answer from Pegasus' CAG.

Stinger was grimacing in pain and Lee had hardly broken a sweat. No surprise there. One couldn't over heat when one's blood was running cold with justifiable retribution.

"Answer me!" Lee's voice was a dangerously tolerant growl that filled Stinger's office.

"Frak… You…" Tongue lolling to the side, swiping at the trickle of blood seeping from when he had bit his own cheek, Lee could actually see Stinger grapple with the temptation to spit at the man who was kicking his ass.

"Frak me? I'm not the one who screwed up, Stinger. I'm not the one who was so intent on riding my ass that I went and assigned myself to the very Viper I tried to bring down." Jaw working hard at clenching and unclenching, Lee cocked his head at Stinger and made very word a sentence. "That. Was. YOU."

Relaxing his grip and rocking back on his heels, Lee managed to look and sound amiable before his eyes narrowed and his lip curled into a snarl.

WHAM!

"Let's" Pulling his fist free of Stinger's side, Lee barely felt the impact in his arms, hips and shoulders.

WHAM!

"Try." Stinger's solar plexus swallowed his knee; folding the CAG in half made it easier for Lee to re-grip the man's plackets and haul him upright.

WHAM!

"This." Not caring that the man was wheezing for breath or that he'd be pissing blood for the next couple of days, Lee nailed Stinger's kidney.

"Again."

Watching Stinger flinch as he said, 'again', brought a feral glint to Lee's eyes. He had him – all that was left was for Stinger to start filling in the proper nouns.

"Who gave the order, Stinger?" Lee demanded to know. Fists curling the fabric in his grip like reins, the hem of the man's shirt lifted. Pale skin was already marbling as the underlying bruise bloomed as Lee gave the other man his sincerest promise. "I can do this all day."

"Tell me what I need to know and this stops right here, right now." Dangling a reprieve in front of the man's pain threshold proved that Lee had the capacity to be reasonable – in spite of the man's rat-bastardness.

Giving Stinger a chance to make up his mind, Lee used the moment to look at the man with layered vision. One perception belonged to an idealistic captain and War College graduate who understood that the person he was beating to a pulp was once a fairly capable pilot, and more than likely a decent human being, who had been warped and damaged by serving under Cain for far too long. The other part of him was looking at piece of shit who was breathing good air someone else might need later on in life and who didn't deserve to walk and breathe at the same time for trying to shoot Starbuck out of the sky.

It was the second point of view that was in control at the moment and that was fine with him as he had yet to hear Stinger answer his question.

"You are so frakking lucky. If she had found you first, the only thing you'd be seeing would be the operating lights in Medical as they put your ass back together." Lee was inches from Stinger's face but in his head he saw Starbuck's infamous right hook – one he had first hand knowledge of – knocking this frakker into next week.

That got him an answer – but not one he was expecting. The gleam in the other man's eye told him Stinger knew something Lee didn't.

Pivoting one more time and hauling Stinger's body up and around, they were back where they started – Stinger grunting with pain as he was slammed up against the storage lockers one more time. Changing things up a bit – not wanting Stinger to think he couldn't be creative – Lee brought his considerable forearm level with Stinger's wind pipe.

"What?" Applying just enough pressure to purple Stinger's face, Lee lanced the man with an even harder look of 'you had better tell me now'.

"She…." Dragging in a shallow breath, Stinger found a stray kernel of stupidity and used it to goad Lee. "Did…"

"She did, 'what'?" Leaning forward, Lee watched the colour of Stinger's face darken.

"She…." Air supply limited to what he had in his lungs, his words were hissed rather than spoken as Stinger tried to levy some sort of emotional leverage against the man he sorely underestimated. "Saw… Me…"

Flexing his forearm muscles, pressing more of his arm against Stinger's throat was Lee's non-verbal way of 'asking' the man to elaborate.

"Came in hot; landed her bird." Recent memory had the man seeing something other than the section of wall behind Lee's shoulder; lack of oxygen highlighted the edges of his face and outlined his lips with a distinctive shade of blue.

Reducing the pressure just a hair, enough for the man to tell him what he needed to know, Lee waited for him to continue.

"Pulled a cigar from somewhere; lit it – on the deck and in front of everyone – and smoked the damned thing as she sat in her cockpit. Bitch kept looking at me as she blew frakking smoke rings in the air."

His last few words were nearly inaudible as Lee corrected Stinger on his use of adjectives concerning his best friend.

"Got out of her Viper; came up to me and snubbed out her cigar – smearing the ashes everywhere – on my report." Reliving the moment on the flight deck when he was working with the Chief accounting for all the crafts and taking Lee with him, the man justified himself. "Had to do the whole thing over. The bi-… she walked off without looking back."

Stinger was the embodiment of everything that was wrong, vile, and corrosive that stemmed from Cain's methodology; the man so deep in the throws of the Pegasus Syndrome that he couldn't even see that what he did was wrong.

Changing his centre of gravity one more time, Lee spun the man around one more time. Locking one of Stinger's arms behind the man's back and pressing upwards, almost to the point of dislocating the CAG's shoulder, Lee used his considerable strength to face-implant Stinger's nose to the desktop. Bending over the man, one hand clamped around Stinger's wrist and the other across the base of his neck, Lee administered two back-to-back doses of 'antibiotics'.

"Rule Number One: we shoot Cylons – not each other." Emphasizing every word, Lee made sure he spoke directly into Stinger's ear as to not be misunderstood.

Giving the man enough slack to nod his head in agreement, Lee re-tightened his grip.

"Rule Number Two: discipline and abuse are two different concepts." Providing Stinger with a viable example, Lee applied more pressure on the man's shoulder. "This is 'discipline'. Popping your joint from your socket? That would be 'abuse'. Understand?"

The way Stinger puffed out the word 'yes' fogged the section of desk that was immediately around his nose and mouth.

While Lee Adama's inner idealist sought another 'rule', Apollo provided one of his own.

"Rule Number Three: Starbuck always makes it home." Absolute was an understatement for the tone Apollo used. "I don't care if the order came from you or someone else to take her out but listen to me now and listen to me good." Apollo's breath was hot enough to burn his words into Stinger's memory. "From here on out, I don't care if you're somewhere on ship taking a piss or flying out there with her, she makes it back to the barn."

"You are damn lucky she's such a frakking good pilot." Lifting the CAG off of his own desk and shoving the man away from him carried enough force to make Stinger stumble as he re-adjusted to life without Apollo kicking the shit out of him.

Making sure the other man knew exactly how things were going to be from this point on, as they pertained to any more attempts to kill Kara, Lee tossed one more promise at his CAG's feet as the man shakily heaved in lungfuls of air.

"If anything happens to her, you can count on there being people who will stand in line, twice, to carve their names into your sorry ass." Knowing whom the man was afraid of the most, Apollo gave Stinger a Starbuckesque smirk. "Of course, that'll be after Cain gets a hold of you."

Not bothering to straighten his clothes, Lee reached into his pockets and plucked out an envelope. Four small words, written in his father's script, stood out against the white background.

_Take care of this._

Spreading the corners revealed a DRADIS snapshot, given to him by a Viper-outfitted Tigh, depicting exactly which Pegasus craft fired a missile at Starbuck's Viper. It was a three-day pass and a 'get-out-of-jail-free-card' all in one.

Slapping the photo down next to Stinger, Lee turned on his heel. Watching a grown man step-shuffle to a chair to nurse his 'wounds' was something he could live without seeing. Not to mention that Stinger was a lost cause. The infection in the man had reached a point where Stinger had actually made a shift in his personal logic to such an extent that there was no way of reaching the man he used to be. The 'antibiotics' Lee administered was an exercise in containment to keep Stinger from further spreading the disease.

Undogging the hatch and leaving the boot where it was, Lee left Stinger's office. The fact that he still didn't know who was behind the attack on Starbuck wasn't lost to him, but what he told Stinger wasn't entirely the truth. He did care; it was just that the few who'd feel threatened enough by Starbuck to actually pull something like this were, aside from Stinger, beyond his reach. Given the fact that Tigh – the last person he'd ever suspect of protecting Starbuck – was the one who passed him that envelope, that end of the problem was already being addressed.

Breathing heavily with the need to empty his lungs of the contaminated air he inhaled that reeked with the stench of rotten officer, he had to admit that the air in the corridor wasn't much better. It would take a long time and a lot of 'disinfectant' to purge the disease from the Battlestar. But she – Pegasus – was worth it, as were the people who called her 'home'.

Stinger's re-education and subsequent 'first aid' cost him time he hadn't intended on spending.

Assuming Stinger hadn't been lying when he said that she was physically in one piece when she landed, it had been hours since Starbuck came back on board. The connotation that she walked off the flight deck without even finishing her shift added to his concern, as did the memory of the nick in her canopy from where her helmet collided with the transparent barrier when she tried to punch-out.

FRAK!

Pegasus was a big-ass ship; twice the size of Galactica and engineered to be manned by a third of the crew. There were so many cargo holds, launch bays, air locks, civilian and staff areas that the only way someone was going to be found was if they wanted to be found. Aside from a systematic, organized, deck-by-deck manhunt, anyone who wanted to truly disappear could actually do that on Pegasus.

His perception of the iconic figure – the winged horse of Zeus, the carrier of thunderbolts and messages of the Gods – had changed. He no longer saw a beautiful, white, fully-fledged steed galloping among the clouds. Not that he ever had much faith to begin with, but even he had to admit that he bought into the romanticized versions of the ancient tales and fables to a certain degree. For him, now, Pegasus was a mare sullied by a master who didn't deserve her and took her gifts for granted; driven relentlessly and forced to battle her way across the cosmos while being denied a place to light; scarred and believing that she was the only one of her kind.

But she wasn't alone. She had found Galactica and Galactica knew exactly where Pegasus would find refuge.

That thought had him stopping in mid-stride and rolling his eyes at himself. Turning on his heel and taking a left at the next junction, he knew exactly where to find Starbuck. All the times she told him that he thought too much rang true. He didn't have to systematically search all the places he thought Starbuck would run and hide; Kara would run until she couldn't run anymore.

Lengthing his gait, his walk became a trot. The carpeted hallways muffled the sounds of his boots as his pace increased to a light jog. Navigating away from the more heavily trafficked areas, he picked up speed until he was full-on running.

Pegasus was a Mercury-class ship, just like Atlantia. Having served on Atlantia, making his way through the maze of corridors that led to the outer-most levels of the ship was like superimposing his past with a one of the possible futures his life could have entailed if the worlds hadn't ended. In another world, in another time, he may've had a shot at commanding one of these massive vessels. Then again, who's to say he would've even stayed in the service? Zak's death was an event unto itself that challenged his perceptions as to what was – and wasn't – important in life. And yet, he'd surpassed his old man and made a name for himself as the officer and man that he was – not because he was a strategically married war-hero's son – by making Captain before he turned thirty.

Dropping down service stairs two at a time, landing safely by gripping the handrails, Lee pushed those thoughts out of his mind. He couldn't play the 'coulda-shoulda-woulda' game. Not right now. Right now, his best friend, resident gad-fly and wing mate needed him and had to be his focus.

Who was he frakking kidding?

He needed her. He needed to see her, for himself, to make sure she really was in one piece. To trace the outline of her body and know that her heart was beating and that her lungs were exchanging oxygen and carbon dioxide.

His pace slowed.

His own breathing became less ragged.

His fear tripled as he ran out of ship to cross.

Facing the doorway of the foremost observation room, there was no where else for anyone to go. It was the last barrier between the hull of the ship and the cold vacuum of space.

A palm waved over the motion-sensor pad triggered the retracting door.

Just like on Atlantia, located away from any of the main areas, one of the most beautiful places on the ship was one of the least trafficked areas. Few could accept that a warship would have such a tranquil place, let alone bring themselves to visit there. It was a paradox that challenged the mind as much as it was actually built to help crewmembers remember the beauty in the universe. Or, looking at it from a more realistic point of view, the engineers screwed up. They ended up with an extra 'room' and the designers didn't know what to do with it. Unable to 'shave' it off the finished design and still keep the clean lines that was the hallmark of the Mercury-class ships, it was made into an observation area and tagged as a psychological necessity for the crew. The only ones who went there were those who knew where it was. Lee would bet that Cain's command didn't include the warm fuzzies that came with watching a particularly stunning ion storm make its way across the cosmos or the deadly beauty of a gas-giant's heaving atmosphere.

Stepping into the dark room, the door automatically closed.

Starlight was the only illumination he had to weave his way around the chairs, chaises and tables scattered strategically to create nooks and private areas for people to meet socially and enjoy each other's company.

It was the oversize shadow that clung to the far side of the Observation Window that set his course.

He couldn't help himself.

What was meant to be a careful approach became a near desperate rush.

The noble intention of putting himself and his needs away was pushed aside.

The 'best friend' persona he had perfected found itself clapped in the same irons that normally kept his possessive, primal, and protective persona, the one that innately recognized that he loved this woman, shackled.

His boots were toed off before he reached her.

The buttons on his jacket were freed and he was barely aware of it pooling around his elbows before he let it fall to the floor.

His double tanks were still gripped in his fists as he gained her side, despite the darkness in which she stood.

Flinging them behind him, his hands were free to trace the contours of her face, the slope of her cheek, the pillowy temptation of her lips and the softness of her hair. Unable to see details, the slight crinkling of the strands underneath his fingers told him she hadn't hit the showers yet. Smooth slickness and the bite of zipper teeth against his chest told him she hadn't even taken off her flight suit.

Pulling her close, he proved to himself that her heart was still beating by crushing her lips to his.

But was she still breathing?

Hard, rough, and pulsing with the need to know, his fingers gripped the tab of the zipper and separated the two halves of her suit. Not breaking his kiss, as if his ardour was the only thing keeping her heart beating, he pushed the flight suit down her shoulders and yanked it – along with her g-shorts – down until both were pooled at her feet.

He felt her body rock as she stamped her way out of her flight suit and pulled her bootless feet - somewhere, somehow, Starbuck had taken off her boots – free of the heavy, protective gear.

Hauling her against every hard plane he had, he wrapped his arms around her waist and slid them down and over her hips, cupping the firmness that tightened under his hands. His fingers warmed with the heat of her body. Her chest expanding and contracting against his pecs was the physical proof he needed to know that she was still drawing breath.

He had not idea how his pants got undone – whether he did it himself or if Starbuck's more than capable fingers released the clasps – but cool air wafting against his backside was the only prompting he needed to step out of the pile of fabric that was his pants and skivvies.

Heads buried in each other's necks, Lee draped her arms around his shoulders and felt his way along her flanks. Hooking her thighs with his strong hands, it was only seconds before he had his hips bracketed by the crooks of her knees and her heels bouncing against his hamstrings.

One lithe, powerful movement and he knew.

He knew he and Kara were alive.

Buried to the hilt in hot, wet, slick, welcoming Kara; it was better than any fantasy, dream or wishful thinking. Squeezing his eyes shut and unable to pull away from the intoxicating aroma wafting up from Kara's body, he wanted – needed – this to last.

_So… _

_Frakking… _

_Tight…_

Step-shuffling, never severing the connection seared into his soul, he stopped when he braced Kara against the window.

The primal growls that rattled his chest as he began to thrust nearly undid him.

Feeling the weight of her head no long on his shoulder and hearing the muted, soft sound of her head coming to rest against the transparent barrier, he opened his eyes to look at the woman who never ceased to give him what he needed whether it was a kick in the ass, the vehemence of a staunch supporter, or to see for himself that she was still alive.

A pair of flat eyes, fixated on something only she could see and an expressionless face stilled his hips.

Oh, Gods…

She had it – the Pegasus Syndrome.

How could he have missed it? Why didn't he pay attention to the fact that she let him get this far without saying something or doing something that had, in the past, stopped this moment from happening?

Pegasus was about fear, subjugation, rules, regulations and a sense of forced identity.

Which was the exactly the same, but at the same time, the complete opposite of what they – Kara and Lee – were about; fear of commitment, Fleet rules and regulations on fraternization – not to mention that they each shared the same paternal figure – and the need to be Starbuck and Apollo, Captain/Lieutenant Adama and Lieutenant Thrace when they were out of the cockpit – especially when the two of them were in the same room.

But right now, it was just him and her – Lee and Kara – and the stars.

Focusing intently on her face, he shifted slightly. A distant light – perhaps no more than starlight refracted off of some surface in the room – appeared and disappeared in the corner of one of her eyes.

It was the glint of hope he had been looking for.

He could do it.

He could bring her back.

She was still there, somewhere. He just had to reach her.

Settling her more completely against the window freed his hands. Cradling the side of her head with one hand, the other he used to turn her face until her green eyes were angled so that she could look directly into his blue eyes.

"Kara?" Licking his lips, tasting her mouth on his tongue, Lee called out to her.

There was no where else for her to look, but there was no way she was seeing him.

"Kara?" He wasn't going to give up on her. "Kara – listen to me, it's me – it's Lee."

An ache in his legs had him rocking his body and resettling the connection between him and Kara. Losing his footing for second, he leaned forward. Air hissed over his teeth as the tight hold she had on cock squeezed him even more intimately as he pressed even deeper into her body.

Recovering, he caught the tail end of some semblance of recognition flit across her face. It wasn't enough to spark her eyes, but the slackness around her mouth was no longer there.

Her body was reacting but her mind, her soul, the very things that had gotten him through his own bout with the disease, were – not so much gone – elsewhere. Locked away for their own good.

Locked away….

Locked away….

Anything that was put away could be brought out again.

Sex was something she knew, was familiar with; her sexuality was intrinsic to who and what she was and is. It was going to be the anchor he was going to use to reach her.

Gathering her in his arms, keeping her tight and protected, it was a handful of steps before he reached the nearest couch. Carefully sitting down and leaning back, making sure she had enough room to lock her heels behind his back, he pulled her forward so that her face was just inches from his own.

Slowly at first, he started to lift his hips. It was the kind of torture that healed his soul as much as it nearly broke his self control.

For him, every thrust, every rocking motion, every caress of her velvety heat exorcised another Pegasus demon.

For him, watching her, it was like witnessing a flame touching piece of paper. For a moment, it's like the paper is impervious to the flame but then, suddenly, it goes everywhere, fully involving the paper until it is consumed.

That terrifying deadness to her eyes lasted a handful of thrusts before a near manic light flared bright and hot. Jerking her body and trying to pull away, Lee reached out to her with a steady hand.

At least, that's what he thought she was trying to do.

It was a moment before he realized she wanted her feet free for an entirely different reason.

Her hands came up and gripped his head roughly. Her tongue, thrusting into his mouth was even harder. Firmly sealing him against her lips, her hands roamed through his hair, down his neck and wrapped around his wrists. Lifting and twisting his hands, Lee's palms were filled with the luscious weight of Kara's breasts. Tightly furled nipples poked at his calloused palm and his fingers learned to pinch and twist the rosy tips until they were red and wanting.

He didn't miss the desperate way Kara had pulled her legs out from behind his back and tucked them underneath her so that she would have better leverage to ride him deep and hard.

Pulling off of him, bracing her hands on the tops of his shoulders and tossing her hair out of her eyes, she looked down at where they would join and took aim.

Sure and true, fully seated and utterly consumed, she rose and fell on him. Meeting her every downswing with an up-thrust, he kept one hand on her breast while the other pulled her mouth to his.

The pin-pricks of sweat that gave their skin an ethereal shine in the starlight ferried the infection out of their minds and souls.

Wrenching her mouth off his, Lee's breath was hard and fast as he leaned her back slightly. Latching onto her upper arms just as she was coming down, he kept her in place as his hips acted on their own volition. Quick, deep, rapid-fire thrusts were powered by his strong, muscled body. Hands tightening reflexively, his orgasm ripped through him; mouth dry, he pressed hot, breathless kisses against the dew-wet skin of Kara's body, tasting nothing but the sweetness of a woman loved.

Head tossing from side to side, eyes flashing, fully flushed by her exertion, potent, a sudden series of cries mirrored the body-encompassing tremors that travelled underneath her skin as she broke around him.

Fingernails digging into him, he never felt. Not when he could look up and see a pair of green eyes looking down at him like they were truly seeing him for the first time.

The flattened, defeated look was gone.

In its place was the woman who made living with Starbuck worthwhile.

Still perched above him, still intimately connected, still joined in a way that rarely happened between lovers, Kara's chin trembled ever so slightly.

"It was bad out there, Lee." Barely more than a whisper, her voice raspy from her recent orgasm, that fact that she was even telling him what happened out there was a concession he didn't miss. "There was a Raider in front of me, spinning and firing. I banked and pulled up on the stick. That's when I felt something graze me; next thing I see is the burn of a missile. It hit the incoming Raider. I had no where to go and even less time to get there. A bit of the Raider was what clipped my wing and burner. I tried to punch out, but nothing happened."

Lifting his legs, taking Kara with him, he shifted both of them until she was lying flat on her back and he was on his side, looking down at her. Tracing a gentle hand over the contusion he could feel underneath her hair, he made a note that in Kara-speak, head-to-canopy impacts translated into nothing.

Finding his voice deep and thick, he asked, "What did the medic say?"

"I never saw one." Her admission led to one more. "They tried to kill me today, Lee; I couldn't. This is…"

"Pegasus," Lee finished her sentence, the same one he heard earlier from the Chief. Gods knew how he hated hearing those words strung together.

This was not how he envisioned their post-coital conversation but at least they were talking without the protection Starbuck and Apollo provided.

His thoughts paused as he saw her catch an eyeful of his skinned knuckles.

"Who told you?" Defensiveness underscored her question as she tried to put some space between their bodies.

Levelling a look that told her he was speaking the truth – and keeping her where she was – Lee's answer was honest, "Your Viper."

Accepting him at his word, her eyelashes formed crescent moons on her cheeks before rising again. She knew he was fluent in Viper-speak, but he could see her next question coming.

"Stinger frakked up, Kara." Succinctly telling her what she wanted to know, he cracked a grateful eyebrow. "That, and Galactica is watching our backs."

"Lee – are we going to be okay?" What was once a whisper was little more than a hesitant murmur.

There were so many answers in his head, not to mention that the very same question was one of the reasons why he nearly succumbed to the Pegasus Syndrome. Almost – but not quite. He has someone a lot closer that Galactica watching out for him and he was going to be damned if he was going to let this place, this ship, destroy Kara.

"I don't know, Kara." He wasn't about to lie to her. "I do know that 'two against all' are better odds than 'everyone against one', if that means anything."

The dark hid his hopeful look but his voice gave away some of the feelings he had been hoarding.

Quiet for a moment, each looking at the other's body rather than each other, Kara placed a slightly uncertain hand on his chest. Resisting the urge to speak first, he rolled his lips together as he waited for her.

"How much time do we have, Lee?"

Sliding on top of her as she slid underneath him, he braced his weight on his elbows. Dipping his head and kissing her hard and deep, he indulged in several minutes of evocative nipping and licking. Feeling her arch against him, brushing his hips with her curls, had him leaving a trail of marks from her jaw to each of her nipples. Dampening each one in turn with his tongue and mouth, he lifted his head and looked at the woman he nearly lost.

Remembering the photo he smacked down on Stinger's desk, the temptation to say 'three days' dried in his throat. They did have a thee-day pass and they were going to use every minute of it, but he didn't want Kara – or himself – to focus on a time frame when they should be taking advantage of the time they had. Every doctor he had ever been too had always added 'rest' and 'plenty of fluids' as the secondary protocol to any medical recovery.

"Long enough to make what happened today a distant memory, Kara."

Nodding her head, finally accepting the other end of the lifeline she had tossed him when they had first come on board, she took him up on his promise.

"Make me forget, Lee…."

Bsg……….Xxx……….Bsg……….

Fin…


End file.
